Minnesota Prairie Roots

AS MY FIFTH MOTHER’S DAY without my mom approaches, I’m thinking of her, missing her, remembering her.

She lived a long life, living until nearly ninety, something none of us expected given her heart issues. Several times we were called to her hospital bedside to say goodbye. I remember one instance when Mom was not expected to make it through the night. The next morning she woke up much-improved and told us, “I guess God wasn’t ready for this stubborn old lady.”

I’ll never forget that. But I would argue that Mom was not stubborn. She was kind, caring, compassionate, loving and patient. With six children, she had to be patient. I raised three children and understand the patience required of mothers.

We all hold memories of our moms—positive, negative and otherwise. Moms, like all of us, are imperfect. But they try. They do their best.

And sometimes they leave us a gift that offers glimpses into their lives. My mom left a stack of notebooks journaling her life from 1947-2014 with a few years missing. These are not diaries with personal feelings and thoughts expressed, but rather a documentation of daily life.

I treasure these notebooks filled with her handwritten observations and notes about life in rural southwestern Minnesota. Hard work filled her days. I pulled out her stenographer’s notebook dated 70 years ago to learn what she was doing in the 10 days before my birth.

There was the usual washing clothes in the Maytag wringer washer, mending, housecleaning, baking and preparing meals. But Mom also picked grapes with my dad, made grape juice the next day and the following day made 32 jars of grape jelly and 18½ quarts of tomato juice. And she was only days away from delivering me.

The day before I was born, Mom dusted floors, baked bread and cherry nut cake, took 13 dozen eggs into town and then celebrated her wedding anniversary with her in-laws. I’m tired simply reading that list of work she accomplished while nine months pregnant.

At 3 a.m. the next morning, Mom awoke in labor and arrived at the Redwood Falls hospital at 4:20 a.m., giving birth to 8 lb 12 oz. me 36 minutes later. That’s cutting it close, in my opinion. But when you go into labor in the early morning, need to get your one-year-old son to his grandparents’ house, and then travel 20 miles to the hospital, well, the time lapse seems reasonable.

Six days after my birth, Mom returned home. I should note here that on her fifth day in the hospital, Mom wrote, “Days are plenty long.” I suppose for a woman used to being busy all the time, lying around proved difficult. But she should have enjoyed the respite from work while she could.

Shortly, Mom was back in full work mode, not only caring for a newborn and a one-year-old and doing other routine household chores, but also feeding a crew of men picking corn on the farm for several days running.

Oh, how I admire this generation of Minnesota farm women who fed and cared for their families and others without the modern conveniences of today. No automatic washer, dryer, dishwasher, microwave. No bathroom or phone in our old farmhouse. Food came mostly from the farm, not the grocery store. And that meant gardening and putting up produce.

I’m thankful my mom found time to journal daily. Even if her entries were only several lines long, she apparently thought this documentation important. And I suppose in farming it was, allowing her and my dad to look back on the previous year’s weather, planting and harvesting progress, and such. But I think, too, writing in those spiral bound notebooks gave her a creative outlet and time for herself.

Mother’s Day offers a time to reflect on motherhood. Most give selflessly, love unconditionally, do the best they can. Mine did. And she left, too, her words chronicling everyday life as a mother and as a farm wife. As a writer I cherish this gift, not only on Mother’s Day, but always.

© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling